THE TALL Ships 2011 festival in Waterford is estimated to have generated at least €30 million for the immediate region, according to Fáilte Ireland.
Gardaí also believe that almost 500,000 people attended the four-day event on both sides of the Suir estuary and in Waterford city.
A fleet of 40 vessels crossed the start line five miles south of Hook Head yesterday afternoon, after early-morning fog and windless conditions delayed the departure.
A forecast of broken weather for this week has resulted in a significant change to the course of the race, which will now follow a route along the east coast up the Irish Sea to the Scottish port of Greenock.
The RNLI Rosslare lifeboat was on station at Tuskar Rock last night to ensure safe passage for the fleet in a busy shipping area.
Sail Training International, the event organisers, said conditions up the original west coast route could prove to be too challenging for the large number of trainees.
The race is due in Greenock on July 9th, and sails from there to Lerwick in the Shetlands, the Norwegian port of Stavanger and the Swedish port of Halmstad.
It could not confirm when the event would return to Waterford, but said the city was “very welcome to apply”.
Fáilte Ireland chairman Redmond O’Donoghue said the tourism organisation intended to commission a case study on Waterford’s “model” management of the race start and shoreside activities.
The successful shore festival wound up with musicians Sharon Shannon, Waterford’s 72-year-old hometown hero, Brendan Bowyer, and fireworks in the city on Saturday night.
The Fáilte Ireland case study would serve as a template for management of other international events in Ireland, Mr O’Donoghue said yesterday.
Also speaking at Dunmore East, Co Waterford, as the 40-strong fleet participated in a parade of sail, Fáilte Ireland director of market development John Concannon said that Ireland clearly had a “comparative advantage” in organising maritime events.
This had been proven by previous hostings of tall ships festivals in Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Belfast, and by the first Volvo Ocean Race stopover in Galway in 2009, he noted.
“It’s not just the big events, however, which are important in stimulating the domestic economy,” Mr O’Donoghue said.
“There are 200 festivals around the country, such as the Galway Film Fleadh starting next week, and each of these are important in their own way.”
Mr O’Donoghue paid particular tribute to the late Nicky Fewer, who had “grabbed the idea of the tall ships for Waterford”.
The current festival chairman, Des Whelan, had “taken Nicky’s nugget and transformed it into a diamond”, he said.
Minister for Agriculture and the Marine Simon Coveney attended the parade of sail at Dunmore East, which took place in almost windless conditions, bright sunshine and temperatures of up to 25 degrees.
Mayor of Waterford Cllr Pat Hayes (Lab) paid warm tribute to the local organisation, the support of Sail Training International, and the participation of more than 800 volunteers, with Civil Defence units from as far as Cavan and Donegal assisting.
“We have had visitors from all over the world – I even met some people from Cork,” Mr Hayes quipped.
“Everyone has a connection in some way with the sea, particularly here in the southeast, which the tall ships festival taps into,” he added.
His own great-grandfather sailed with the Waterford Steamship Company which was subsequently acquired by Clyde shipping interests.
Mr Whelan, managing director of WLR FM, said that the race committee had spent two years planning, and it was a “team effort”.
Gardaí had played a major role, his colleagues noted, from distributing children’s security wristbands (for inscribing parents’ mobile phone numbers) to crowd and traffic management in and around the city.
Supt Chris Delaney of Waterford gardaí said the festival had lived up to “all expectations”, given all the “variables” from weather to potential water incidents.
More than 300 gardaí had been stationed in and around Waterford and on the Wexford side of the Suir estuary during the four days, he said.